Residential care in Australia serves a small but highly complex group of young people whose experiences of instability, trauma, and disconnection often limit their sense of being loved, respected, and valued. This article applies Honneth’s recognition theory to better understand these experiences and identify pathways for strengthening care. Drawing on interviews with thirty-eight young people in therapeutic residential care in New South Wales, it examines how everyday practices shape experiences across Honneth’s three dimensions of recognition: love, rights, and solidarity. Participants identified caring and consistent relationships, trust, genuine worker interest, opportunities to exercise agency, decision-making participation, and positive peer and community connections as central to feeling seen and valued. However, placement instability, restrictive rules, inconsistent decisions, and institutional constraints undermined recognition and reinforced stigma and isolation. Integrating participant accounts with Häkli and colleagues’ concept of ‘positive recognition’, the article reveals that recognition emerges through the interplay of relational practices and organizational environments. Findings demonstrate that recognition operates at both systemic and interpersonal levels. Strengthening relational practice, enabling participation, and opening up recognition-supportive contexts are essential for improving young people’s wellbeing, identity formation, and experiences of safety and belonging in residential care.